


centers of what I am of what remains.

by possessedradios (orphan_account)



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: (Watch me tear poems by Charles Bukowski apart and put them out of context for a title.), A non-person and a horrible person go on a walk together. What happens next will--, Anyway this is soft and gay and cheesy happy pride month, M/M, Post-Canon, me (crying): The survivors all live together on a farm ok?!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-06
Updated: 2018-06-06
Packaged: 2019-05-19 02:10:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14864657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/possessedradios
Summary: “Getting away from everything for a while and just looking at how beautiful the world is… It’s good for, uh. Mental … health … stuff?” He got quieter the higher Daniel’s eyebrows went.(Doug might not know himself, and he might not be able to walk up a hill without almost collapsing, and he might not know why exactly Daniel is so grumpy, but-- There has to be a punchline here, right?)





	centers of what I am of what remains.

**Author's Note:**

> Mer: You could write fluffy Jacoffel  
> Daniel: What if the survivors all lived together on a farm  
> Me, crying: Ok,,

“So, and, uh, why exactly are we doing this?” Daniel asks, sounding unreasonably grumpy considering he consented to the offer – no one’s forced him to join Doug. He also _doesn’t_ sounds as if he was about to collapse any moment now, hyperventilating and close to cardiac arrest, which, Doug thinks, is simply not fair.

He stops and tries to catch his breath, staring after Daniel who just keeps walking.

“Maybe… Maybe wait for me?” he calls, and even though Daniel has his back turned towards him, just _knows_ that he’s rolling his eyes.

Doug catches up with him a few seconds later and gestures to the top of the hill they’re headed towards. “I just thought- To, uh, answer your question, I mean. I thought it would be nice. I’m sure the view is nice!”

“Uh-huh,” Daniel makes. “And?”

“Wh- nothing, and,” Doug says, a little disappointed about the lack of enthusiasm. “Just … you know.”

“I really don’t.”

Doug looks at Daniel and remembers suddenly that he was SI-5, so the fact that he doesn’t collapse after walking uphill for half an hour makes sense, now. Still: unfair.

“You can go back, if you want,” Doug offers slowly, because he suddenly isn’t sure anymore that this was such a good idea, but Daniel shakes his head.

“We’re almost there, so – _you know_.”

“I just thought it’d be good for you,” Doug blurts out, a few steps behind and with his head still stuck at the ‘what’s the point, exactly’ part of their conversation.

Daniel frowns. “What do you mean, ‘good for me’?”

Doug shuffles his feet on the ground, which is something, he’s noticed, that he’s doing, now, or maybe he did it before, too, he doesn’t know. Of course he doesn’t know. Anyway, he shuffles his feet on the ground, mostly because he doesn’t know what to say – he hadn’t planned on telling Daniel why he asked him for a walk. Talking without thinking is something he’s always been good at, he knows that much; he’s listened to his stupid logs, and he wishes that was something that he’d lost along with everything else about himself. Things would be much easier, he suspects, if he just kept his mouth shut sometimes. And yet, here he is.

“Helloooo? Ground control to–”

Right. Daniel is expecting an answer.

“Just!” Doug shrugs. “Getting away from everything for a while and just looking at how beautiful the world is… It’s good for, uh. Mental … health … stuff?” He got quieter the higher Daniel’s eyebrows went.

“I _see_ ,” Daniel says. “Geez, thank you, Eiffel.” (Isabel and Renée ask him to call him Doug on an almost daily basis, but, well.) 

“Not-!” Doug sighs. “I just thought–”

“No, yeah, I got it.” Daniel starts walking again, which, Doug thinks, might be a good sign, after all, until he starts talking again. “You think I’ll feel oh-so-much better – which, by the way, awfully bold of you to assume I need to feel better, or anything at all – if we stand on top of a hill and, what? Watch the sunset?”

“... Kind of, yeah,” Doug says, out of breath already again, and also significantly less enthusiastic himself, now. It sounded less silly in his head.

“That’s fantastic,” Daniel says flatly. “Did you read that in a self-help magazine from the 80ies and suddenly _remembered_ all these beautiful tips?”

Doug says nothing for a few long seconds, and then he just answers, “Renée would yell at you really loud for saying that.”

“Yup.” Daniel shrugs. “That’s why I like doing stuff alone with you.”

“So you can … be an ass without getting yelled at?”

“Well, you know what they say. Just _be yourself_.”

 _Oh, she’d yell at him for that, too_ , Doug thinks, but keeps quiet. Not because he doesn’t have any thoughts on it (he does, most of which can be summarized with “ouch”), but because he needs his air to, well, breathe. God, he should start exercising.

They remain silent until they’re finally on top of the hill. Doug drops to the ground immediately, breathing heavily, _God, he should start exercising._ Daniel just stands there, with his arms crossed, staring into the distance.

Doug is staring at him, still quiet, and tries to figure him out, tries to determine what _exactly_ it means – all of him, his behavior. The things he says, the words he chooses, casual in theory, made sharp and cold and hurtful (and Doug wonders, is this conscious effort, does Daniel _want_ it to hurt?) through his tone of voice; the biting sarcasm.

“Have I– Have I done anything to you?” Eiffel blurts out eventually, because, oh, he’s so fricking good at that. “Something … the others haven’t told me about? If so, I’m sorry, I didn’t want to–”

“Oh, for God’s–” Daniel groans and shakes his head, finally turning around to look at him. “Shut up, Eiffel.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Daniel considers him for a moment and then slowly sits down, leaving two feet or so between them, a whole Universe.

“You haven’t _done anything to me_ ,” Daniel says, spits the words, almost. “You’re the goddamn founder of Team What’s Wrong With Fucking Handcuffs. You haven’t done anything, ever. And now you’re _worried about me_ , or something, for whatever goddamn reason.”

Doug feels like he’s spectacularly missing the point.

“You just,” he says, and then nothing, because he might be missing the point of whatever Daniel is trying to tell him spectacularly, but he’d like to think he knows him well enough to be aware that he’d rather not hear the sentence ‘You just seem kinda sad’.

The silence grows heavy as the sky grows darker. They both are staring into the distance, now, Daniel cross-legged with his hands in his lap, Doug with both feet firmly planted on the ground (his therapists says it’s good; helpful; keeps one more grounded) and his arms wrapped around his legs. The whole village is visible like this, a lot of farmhouses, one of them theirs, and Doug remembers how proud he was when they’d first been able to pick one of the salads he’d planted– Other houses, too. Countless lights. Warm and yellow and bright and white, street lamps and lit windows, so many people, so many lives. Doug feels very small, but in a good way, he thinks, or at least a neutral one. It’s comforting. So many people. Rarely any of them know him, which he likes, because he still feels like he doesn’t know himself.

“–You really don’t get it, huh?” Daniel’s voice cuts through the silence with such an abruptness that Doug almost flinches. “You don’t even remember me. You don’t _know_ me. You have no idea who I am.”

“I…” Doug says, trailing off quickly. “No, I don’t get it. I mean, yeah, I don’t remember you, but neither do I remember Renée, or Isabel, or Miranda, or–” _or myself,_ he’d wanted to say, but it sounded too dramatic even _inside_ his head. 

Daniel scoffs. “Great, we’re on the same page, for once. Then why fucking bother? Why ask me on walks, or whether I want to help in the garden or go grocery shopping with you?”

Doug blinks at him. “Because I want to get to know you? That’s … exactly the point, right?”

“You don’t,” Daniel says sharply. “You really don’t want that, trust me.”

He exhales slowly when Doug just stares at him, _still_ not getting it. “Look, Eiffel, it’s– I’ve never been Team What’s Wrong With Fucking Handcuffs.” He pauses. “Or, alright, I _have_ , but not in the context you’re thinking. Anyway! I’m not one of the _good guys_. I’m just not! And I don’t think any of you really get this. I didn’t even want to stay with you; Lovelace basically kidnapped me! So, believe me, you _don’t_ want to get to know me. It’s bullshit, and it’s pointless, and it won’t take you long to figure out that you don’t actually want to spend time with me, so– Why _bother_?”

Doug mulls these words over for a while. In the end, he shrugs. “I don’t care. I just think the person I got to know so far is pretty neat.”

Now Daniel’s the one staring at him. He snorts and shakes his head. “God, you’re an idiot.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Doug grins at him. “I’m an idiot, you’re an ass – I think we’re made to last, honey!”

Daniel’s eyes widen a little, and then he turns his head with a jerk, staring down at the village again without another word. It’s hard to tell with how dark it’s quickly getting, but Doug thinks he’s blushing. He grins even more at that.

“Cute,” he breathes.

“What?” Daniel asks, and Doug quickly shakes his head.

“Nothing. It was nothing.”

Daniel hums and, after a moment, shifts his weight a little. It’s not much, but it’s enough that they’re sitting just a tiny bit closer to each other, and Doug thinks that breathing is suddenly harder again, even without walking up a stupid hill, and then he thinks he’s being ridiculous, and then he thinks it was true – he really does think that Daniel’s neat. 

“You were right,” Daniel says after– well, after some time; Doug has no idea how much time has passed. The sharp sarcasm is gone, which he likes. Daniel’s voice is soft and warm like that. “For whatever it’s worth – the view _is_ very nice.”

Doug smiles to himself and glances over at him.

“Yeah,” he says. “I know, right?”

**Author's Note:**

> This is gay, I'm gay, you can see me being even gayer on tumblr, I'm possessed-radios and my podcast sideblog is shortwaveattentionspan.


End file.
